California has exercised a haunting fascination on men’s imaginations ever since the days of Cortés. During the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, at least twenty expeditions served as a prelude to the occupation, first of the Lower California Peninsula in 1697, and then of New, or Upper, California in 1769. A complete list of these voyages and attempted entradas has not yet been made. Suffice it to say that we are far from possessing the accounts of all the efforts that were made to discover and colonize those regions from 1535 to 1769.

In 1769 New, or Upper, California was first visited by the pionéer founders of its missions and presidios. They had come from Loreto in the Lower California Peninsula, after an arduous trip of over two-hundred leagues over barren mountains. This was the famous expedition of Serra and Portolá, which marks the beginning of the Spanish colonization with the founding of San Diego and the exploration of all the coast up to San Francisco. That year records the birth of Upper California.

One of the first acts of the Administration of the future Marquês de Pombal was to put into execution the Treaty of 1750, which was the keystone of the peninsular policy of D. João V. To assure and consolidate the good relations with Spain, that had begun with the exchange of princesses at Caia, was his principal desire. To liquidate the old disagreement about the Colónia do Sacramento, which had cost both the Portuguese and Spaniards quantities of blood since its foundation on the Rio Plata by D. Manuel Lobo, was the end and purpose of this treaty.

The monarch hoped, by marrying the Princess D. Maria Bárbara with the Prince of Asturias, the future King of Spain, and his elder son D. José with D. Mariana Vitória, to liquidate the old question by means of this “treaty, that had been concluded through the efforts of Alexandre de Gusmão”. In spite of everything, and notwithstanding the language and the “tone of this memorable treaty”, and the sincerity and good intentions of the two Crowns, the treaty produced “discontent, as much in Spain as in Portugal”.

Having dealt with the poetry which Catholics contributed to Mexican literature during the Díaz era, we now turn our attention to their literary contributions in the field of prose composition. As in the case of poetry, much of this literary prose appeared originally in the periodicals of the day and, unfortunately, much of it is still there, comparatively little having been assembled and brought out in book form. In this respect the prose writers have received smaller recognition from posterity than the poets, owing perhaps to the fact that the Mexican by tradition and temperament prefers verse to prose, finds greater delight in the measured magic of a song than in the less appealing beauties of an essay, a discourse, or even a novel.

Whatever the reason may be, we must examine the periodicals of the time before we can form an adequate estimate of contributions to literary prose. The part that Catholics played in the realm of periodical literature will, therefore, occupy our attention before we marshal the writers themselves and their productions in prose.

The name of the Dominican friar, Padre José María Vargas, is well-known in the literary and artistic centres of Ecuador, and especially in its capital, the ancient city of “San Francisco de Quito”. The work which we here consider is not the first that has come from his facile pen, prolific in production and classic in style. In 1941 he published the interesting survey entitled: La Cultura del Quito Colonial wherein the author, with abundant information and calm investigation, places before the eyes of the reader the Old Quito of Colonial days, that Quito which, despite its secondary political importance during the Spanish regime, was a centre of intellectual and especially of artistic culture of the first order. Its culture was not dammed up within the confines of the city, but rather, like one of these quiet and peaceful little rivers of tranquil waters that fructify far-off lands, it overflowed into the cities of the viceroyalties of New Granada and Peru. For such was the city of San Francisco de Quito: an enormous workshop where the plastic arts were widely cultivated and where colonial artists, both the famous and the nameless, gave themselves up entirely to the pursuit of their art.

Known by various names, this Franciscan Province at one time comprised the territory of all the states in the vast basin of the Rio de la Plata and its great tributaries: the Rio de la Plata and Tucumán colonies (present Argentina), Paraguay, and Uruguay—and in the beginning also the southernmost part of Brazil.

Though it was the last of the Franciscan Provinces to be established in Spanish South America during colonial times, it was founded as the independent Custody of Paraguay-Plata as early as 1538. In 1565 another Custody, that of St. George of Tucumán, was founded by Franciscans of the Peruvian Province (see The Americas, II, 83–90). These two Custodies were united into one in 1575, but separated again into two in 1597, both remaining dependent on the Province in Peru. Fifteen years later, the General Chapter held in Rome on July 12, 1612, once more joined the two Custodies to form the Province of Rio de la Plata.